UK workers paid to stay home on government scheme

InternationalUK workers paid to stay home on government scheme

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UK workers paid to stay home on government scheme

London: More than six million workers in the United Kingdom are being paid by the government to stay at home.

That number amounts to approximately a quarter of the nation’s private-sector employees now on the government’s furlough scheme, with 800,000 employers claiming a total – so far – of eight billion pounds ($9.9bn) from state coffers to pay them, Revenue and Customs officials said on Monday.

The UK’s daily toll announced on Monday showed a rise of 288 deaths, for a total of 28,734 – second only within Europe to Italy.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is central to efforts to stop mass lay-offs of workers during the forced shutdown of much of the economy, and sees the state pay 80 percent of workers’ wages – up to 2,500 pounds ($3,100) a month.

The programme is currently set up to run until the end of June, but Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said on Monday that there would be “no cliff-edge”.

“I am working as we speak to figure out the most effective way to wind down the scheme and ease people back into work in a measured way,” Sunak told ITV News.

“But as some scenarios have suggested we are potentially spending as much on the furlough scheme as we do on the NHS (National Health System), for example. Now, clearly, that is not a sustainable situation.”

The scheme has been forecast to cost around 39 billion pounds ($48.5bn), assuming that 30 percent of the nation’s employees are enrolled, the UK’s official budget forecasters have said.

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